Well, I found this rather hard sledding, for some reason, with a variety of elaborate constructions on some clues, and a couple of inventive surprises, mentioned below, but overall an enjoyable challenge nonetheless. I am not sure that I quite explained 6D. Note the ninas TAILS and CLAWS down around the center column; is this a Bobcat trademark? (I am a newbie on the FT scene.) As always, I welcome comments and elucidations.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PROPEL |
Drive forward the French backs (6)
|
| PROP (forward, as in rugby) + reversed (backs) LE (“the” in French) | ||
| 5 | SCOTTISH |
Writer is hard to follow, like Burns (8)
|
| SCOTT (writer, as in Sir Walter Scott) + IS + H (hard), as in Robert Burns | ||
| 9 | SENORITA |
Unity’s repelled by appeal artist holds for young lady (8)
|
| ONES (unity’s) reversed (repelled) + RA (artist, i.e., Royal Academician) contains (holds) IT (appeal, i.e. sex appeal) | ||
| 10 | LITCHI |
Plant desire in Juliet’s heart (6)
|
| ITCH (desire) inside (in) [ju]LI[et] (“heart” of Juliet) | ||
| 11 | CUSTOM |
Standard practice for hack to receive special award (6)
|
| CUT (hack) containing (to receive) S (special) + OM (award, i.e., Order of Merit) | ||
| 12 | EL DORADO |
Place fabulously loaded with gold (2,6)
|
| Cryptic definition, also anagram (fabulously) LOADED + OR (gold) | ||
| 14 | BETA PARTICLE |
Could it be used to pelt bacteria indirectly? (4,8)
|
| Anagram of (indirectly) PELT BACTERIA and &lit | ||
| 18 | INTERVIEWERS |
They may probe between the eyes (12)
|
| Cryptic or witty(?) definition | ||
| 22 | BROCCOLI |
Vegetable gives brother colic when cycling (8)
|
| BRO (brother) + CCOLI (“colic” with the last letter “cycling” to the front) | ||
| 25 | TALLOW |
Grease left Travolta exhausted initially, then dispirited (6)
|
| T[ravolt]A (emptied or “exhausted”) before (initially) L (left) + LOW (dispirited) | ||
| 26 | SKOPJE |
Crack jokes about Portugal’s capital (6)
|
| Anagram of (crack) JOKES around (about) P (Portugal), i.e., capital of North Macedonia | ||
| 27 | ISABELLA |
She’s one to make a sound tax-free investment as an outsider (8)
|
| ISA (tax-free investment, i.e., Individual Savings Account) around (as an outsider) A (one) + BELL (to make a sound) | ||
| 28 | ENERGISE |
Excite rebellious Frenchman to confront soldier’s base (8)
|
| RENÉ (Frenchman) reversed (rebellious) + GIS ([American] soldiers) + E (base, i.e., of the natural logarithms) | ||
| 29 | TITTER |
Exclude women from social site for a laugh (6)
|
| T[w]ITTER (social site, excluding “w” [women]) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | RHESUS |
Factor sure to be involved with extremes of haemolysis (6)
|
| Anagram of (to be involved) SURE + H[aemolysi]S (taking only the “extremes”). Rhesus or Rh factor is a protein found on the outside of red blood cells, and admixture of incompatible types destroys those cells. The clue could also be read as an &lit. Nice one. | ||
| 3 | POOL TABLE |
Where one might go to pot after the rack’s been used (4,5)
|
| Cryptic definition (i.e., “rack” used to arrange the balls and “pot” meaning to pocket the balls) | ||
| 4 | LEITMOTIV |
Theme sounds superficial: insufficient reason to take action (9)
|
| LEIT (sounds like “light,” i.e., superficial) + MOTIV[e] (reason to take action, “insufficient” by missing the final “e”) | ||
| 5 | SHAKE UP |
Disturb cat endlessly returning to catch fish (5,2)
|
| PUS[s] (cat “endlessly”) reversed (returning) containing (to catch) HAKE (fish) | ||
| 6 | OILED |
Tipsy cake of sorts is given poor marks (5)
|
| OIL (cake of sorts) + E + D. I am not sure that I quite understand this one, although I understand that both “E” and “D” are low marks in the UK school grading system. | ||
| 7 | TUTOR |
Coach house to evict daughter – about time! (5)
|
| TU[d]OR (house, “evicting” “d,” for daughter) around (about) T (time) | ||
| 8 | SCHEDULE |
Plan to dispense with Christmas broadcast (8)
|
| Homophone for (broadcast) “shed Yule” | ||
| 13 | OPT |
Plump, owing to lack of exercise (apparently) (3)
|
| Cryptic definition, for OPT (plump, or “choose”), cryptically meaning that this should be read as “0 [zero] PT,” or “apparently” “owing to lack of exercise,” i.e., physical training. Another nice one. | ||
| 15 | RE-ENTRANT |
One returning to employment is right to accept a tenner in review (2-7)
|
| RT (right) containing (to accept) anagram of (in review[?]) A TENNER | ||
| 16 | INSOLVENT |
Suffering from debt: realising means of liquidation? (9)
|
| Cryptically, “in solvent” as a “means of liquidation” | ||
| 17 | UNBROKEN |
Perpetual bankrupt at last in prison under pressure from international group (8)
|
| UN (international group) + BROKE (bankrupt) + N (last [letter] in “prison”), with “under pressure from” indicating the placement of “UN” on top | ||
| 19 | ROC |
Fantastic flyer for Sound of Music? (3)
|
| Homophone for (sound of) “rock” (music) | ||
| 20 | EDIFICE |
Editor and setter take over top third of workplace building (7)
|
| ED (editor) + I (setter) replacing first letters of (take over top third of) [of]FICE (workplace) | ||
| 21 | COLLIE |
Animal working pit railway’s gone missing (6)
|
| COLLIE[ry] (working pit, i.e., coal mine, with “ry” [railway] “gone missing”) | ||
| 23 | CAPER |
Pursuit ends in trollop and detective being taken for a ride (5)
|
| Ends of [trollo]P and [detectiv]E inside of CAR (i.e., “being taken for a ride”) | ||
| 24 | OBELI |
Mother-to-be likes restricting symbols in texts (5)
|
| Hidden in (restricting) [mother-t]O-BE-LI[kes], i.e., plural of obelus, “†“ |
I’ve only seen it spelt LEITMOTIF but what would I know
Yes, the feline-related Ninas are a Bobcat trademark, though usually there’s only one. I liked the &lits / semi-&lits / cryptic defs you’ve mentioned, to which I would add SCOTTISH. I also liked the references in the surface of TALLOW – RIP ONJ.
I’m not sure if your uncertainty at 6d was regarding the def or with OIL as ‘cake of sorts’. I understood OILED as a colloquialism for ‘Tipsy’ but didn’t know beforehand that an OIL ‘cake’, meaning one made with OIL rather than butter, is a thing. Again from Wikipedia, another meaning is that “oil cake”, made after the oil is extracted from eg olives, can be used as animal feed.
Thanks to Bobcat and Cineraria
Thanks, WordPlodder@2. With regard to 6D: No, I thought I understood the “oil cake” part OK; I did not completely understand how the “E” and “D” were supposed to work, unless my parsing is correct? “Oiled” I knew from an Elton John song, of all places.
Hello Cineraria. Yes, I parsed the “E” and the “D” as you did, even if where I come from a “D” is at least a pass, if not a good mark.
Seeing the spelling of “center” in your summary, I was impressed that you weren’t tripped up by the first bit of the 8d homophone.
Like copmus, I was only familiar with the LEITMOTIF spelling but held back on entering the last letter until I was sure. Unusually, my pick is the 3-letter OPT with its clever use of ‘plump’. Didn’t enjoy this as much as his previous outings but still very good.
I think 18A is a charade: INTER = between, VIEWERS = “the eyes”, “they probe” = definition.
As Wordplodder@2 says, “oil-cake” (see 6D) is a type of cattle feed – it is given in Chambers. I checked LEITMOTIV (4D) there as well, and was somewhat surprised to see that it appears as the first spelling. I agree with Cineraria’s reading of “poor marks” for the D and E in 6D.
WordPlodder@4: I decided that sticking with my frontier orthography would be less pretentious, not that I could hope to deploy the UK spellings consistently anyway. To your point: the puzzle contains at least eight UK features that an American might find unfamiliar. “Leitmotiv,” the original German spelling, posed another crosscultural adventure, as several comments noted.
Re 27A: ISA isn’t known in Australia but was gettable after the other letters fell into place.
We also have “lychee” not “litchi”, but this is an English crossword so the home team rules.
I’m also in the LEITMOTIF brigade.
Peter@8, I have lived my whole life in England and would also write ‘Lychee’. My dictionary gives ‘litchi’ as a variant of Lychee.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria.
Oh, and me too for LEITMOTIF though the wordplay led unmistakably to LEITMOTIF.
LEITMOTIF. Spellchecker!
And again. I give up.
A thoroughly enjoyable, satisfying and challenging puzzle, with so many clever clues that I gave up noting them after the first half-dozen. An excellent start to the day (from Canada)! Thanks to Bobcat and Cineraria.
Bobcat usually gives me trouble and this crossword was no exception. For one reason or another I failed with TALLOW (should have seen this one), SKOPJE, OPT, COLLIE, and OBELI — they were all beyond my grasp. Still, I keep coming back to Bobcat for excellent clues like SENORITA, SHAKE UP, EDIFICE, and my top choice, EL DORADO. Thanks Bobcat and welcome Cineraria to the FT blogosphere.
Thanks for the blog, usual set of clever clues here, I agree with Rudolf@6 for INTERVIEWERS.
I will echo the praise of Tony@14 for SENORITA and EDIFICE but EL DORADO gets a severe Paddinton stare.
An enjoyable solve which we fairly whizzed through. No problem with LITCHI; although we normally think of it as ‘lychee’ the ‘litchi’ spelling reflects changes in the way Chinese words are rendered in English (think Peking/Beijing). No problem either with LEITMOTIV as a German word adopted into English.
Favourite was BETA PARTICLE.
Thanks, Bobcat and Cineraria.
To me RHESUS is a monkey! so I didn’t enter it. Used up too much time getting only half way through.
Completed the following morning after a bit of trouble in the bottom left hand corner. There was a wonderful a-ha moment when Skopje fell, with the final few to follow.
There were half a dozen I needed your help to parse – thank you
John@17: “Rhesus? – They’re monkeys!!” – shades of Tony Hancock’s The Blood Donor.
The Order of Merit is not an award. It is an order to which people are appointed.
Sharon@20, would you consider the attendant insignia (badge and ribbon) equivalent to an “award,” or close enough for Cryptic-Crosswordland? A very precise clue might have said “honour,” I suppose.
Without consulting the dictionary I was convinced that LEITMOTIV was German and LEITMOTIF was English, so without a foreign language indicator I assumed the clue was a homeophone and went with the English spelling, thus making 18a INTERVIEWERS ungettable (with two t’s).
Nevertheless I enjoyed this, so thanks Bobcat and Cineraria for the excellent puzzle and blog.